


The Third Race

by Rahar_Moonfire



Category: Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, Forgotten Realms, Stargate SG-1
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27985011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rahar_Moonfire/pseuds/Rahar_Moonfire
Summary: Understand this: there was once an alliance of four great races in the galaxy. The Asgard, the Nox, the Furlings, and the Ancients." - Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet.The Ancients left the galaxy long ago. The Nox were peaceful and wished to be left alone. The Asgard were a military powerhouse against the Goa'uld threat. The Furlings...OrThere was an Unplanned Offworld Activation of the SGC Stargate that shut down almost as soon as it opened. Repeated efforts to re-open the Gate to that world failed to create a stable wormhole. Until a sneaky visitor springs SG-1 from their Goa'uld prison.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 28





	1. Session 0

**Author's Note:**

> Been a while. Sorry about that. I've been having a serious case of writer's block due to a lot of things. But I'm about to get lasik surgery tomorrow and my coping mechanism for fear of surgery is stress-writing. I'm excited cause I'll finally be able to see, but stressed because surgery. Yikes.
> 
> I've gotten back into playing/DMing D&D and decided to try my hand at writing a D&D adventure using the characters I've made over the years. Then I realized how hilarious it'd be to have a tiefling wizard, a sniper sorcerer, a tinkering artificer, and a rogue/warlock, and messing around in space on Goa'uld ships. And thus, this was born.

Elia Zivilyn adjusted her little hat as she ducked to avoid the low stone overhang. It had taken a decent amount of time for her party to clear this area of traps and any lingering spells. Luckily, most of the traps had already been deactivated years ago from the looks of it. But some of the spells had reset as was their nature. Dungeons could be like that sometimes.

That was one of the reasons why Elia, her Wizard husband Damien, Alfonse Cartwright the Artificer, and Rhiannon Brightfeather the warrior Cleric had devoted so much of their careers into understanding the existence and nature of Dungeons. No one knew what they were, where they came from, what their purpose was, or anything really. All they knew for certain was that they tended to appear, or more accurately be found, in places where there was a high concentration of magic or magic-related artifacts.

Naturally, this drew the attention of monsters and adventurers alike. Some Dungeons were fairly easy to clear, but they never remained cleared for long. Adventurers tended to clear a dungeon, grab what they could, then high tail it out of there before everything reset. Most of the time, they could make it out. But not all the time. More often than not, the remains of previous adventurers were among the most reported findings of Dungeons.

This Dungeon was no exception. Rhiannon and Elia had only just finished carting the remains they could find out to the awaiting coroner. Some would hopefully be identified. It was never an easy job, but it was a necessary one. Each body and each skeleton belonged to someone and every one of them deserved to be put to rest. That was one of the reasons why expeditions like theirs always had someone who could cast the _Gentle Repose_ and _Lesser_ or _Greater Restoration_ spells just in case… Well, just in case.

Elia glanced at Damien walking next to her and winced. The light from the lamps charmed with _Continual Flames_ now installed along the Dungeon walls cast dark shadows across her husband's face. Damien's solid silver eyes had lost their sparkle. The only light in them was from the lamps. His gray skin was paler than it should be. Even his well-groomed black locks which were normally immaculately brushed to frame his face and his lone black Tiefling horn hung limp and lifeless against his forehead.

She winced and placed a gentle hand on her husband's shoulder. Damien glanced at her curiously before allowing his shoulders to droop. His smile was wane but genuine. Good. He wasn't in pain, just tired. He must have used more magic than he'd originally intended. They didn't get a good night's sleep last night what with the nasty weather up here so close to the Spine. More than one tent had been blown over during the storms and much of the morning had been spent cleaning up the mess.

"I'm fine," Damien said, his reassuring baritone brushing over her. "Just tired, is all."

"Elia! Dami! What's the hold-up?" Alfonse called from up ahead.

Elia snorted at the sullen expression that immediately settled on her husband's face at the childish nickname. Alfonse had a masterful way of getting under Damien's perfectly manicured feathers

"We're coming," she called, tucking a strand of brown hair back behind her ear. "Sweetie's taxed though."

Damien gasped in mock offense at the endearment, Rhiannon's raucous laughter filled the cavernous air, and Alfonse poked his head out from behind a stalagmite. The artificer was shamelessly grinning despite the dirt and grime streaking his face. When he finally got a good look at her precious wizard though, Al's green eyes flickered with genuine concern and he made his way back to them.

Alfonse's messy brown hair, a shade or so lighter than Elia's own, stuck out in all directions underneath the goggles he had strapped to his head. Pulling off his treasured gloves and tucking them into one of his many belt bags, he pressed the backs of his fingers against Damien's forehead.

A second later, Rhiannon appeared. The half-elf's long, messily braided blonde hair was slung over the shoulder not covered by her half plate armor. Her battleax clinked against her back as she strode confidently after her friend. Her carefree grin faded from her tattooed face the moment she got a good look at Damien.

"Physical or magical exhaustion?" Rhiannon called, picking up her pace.

"Both probably," Al replied, removing his hand from Damien's skin and crossing his arms.

"I have a couple healing spells left in me," Rhiannon said, reaching up to tap the small silver holy symbol woven into her braided hair by her pointed ear. "How much you need Prissy?"

Damien grimaced, fighting his pride even now. Elia nudged him and smirked victoriously at the sigh of surrender.

"A little should be fine," he muttered.

Nodding, Rhiannon cracked her knuckles and pressed a hand against her friend's gray forehead and whispered a brief prayer to her goddess Selûne. A soft silvery glow similar to moonlight emanated from her hand, tracing the veins in Damien's forehead before vanishing. It was quick, but the results were obvious. Damien's face was a healthier shade of gray and he smiled in silent thanks.

It vanished the instant Alfonse smacked his shoulder. "Don't just go around suffering like a plucked chicken when you know Rhi and I both have _Cure Wounds_ you big, gray dork."

Rhiannon cackled. "Besides," she added, "you know damn well I'm the only one allowed to fuck you all up because I'm the only one who can make sure none of you die."

Refusing to rise to the bait, Damien crossed his arms and huffed.

Smirking, Rhiannon leaned in close. "Would you prefer I sic Heru'ur on you?"

The color vanished from Damien's face and he frantically waved his hands as if to refute the very suggestion of such a thing. "He's _insane!"_ he cried.

"Hardly," the half-Kagonesti elf snorted. "He's just slippery as hell."

"You're just mad you haven't been able to get away with lying to him yet," Alfonse snickered.

"Come on," Elia said, looping her arm through Damien's and tugging him forward while Al and Rhiannon fell in on either side of them. "We have a job to do. Gold, treasure, bodies, items, artifacts, whatever's at the end of this, we owe it this much."

"Shouldn't be too much actually," Al said, pulling out his journal.

He raised his free hand to absently cast a spell when Damien dropped a pinch of phosphorescent moss onto the pages. It immediately disintegrated, replaced by a bright light that radiated from the journal pages. Alfonse shook his head and grinned.

"Thanks. Anyway, there shouldn't be much left in here," he said, flipping the page and scanning through his notes. "From what I've been able to put together, this was a particularly difficult Dungeon."

"We figured when most of the remains we found were all near the entrance," Elia said, nodding.

Alfonse hummed. "There were some more further in. Thanks for that _Detect Magic_ , by the way," he added to the wizard. "Most of the traps in here were mechanical by nature and less magic-heavy, but the ones that were magic were nasty. All I know for certain is that there was at least one party that made it further in than we've gone till now. It's possible they made it to the end. They may have even survived and made it back out."

"How do you know that?" Damien asked.

"The traps," the cleric said.

Nodding, Alfonse pointed up to the remains of a trap now safely deactivated and nothing but a pile of rope and rusted metal. "Most of them were like that already. Whoever got to them is hella good."

"Rogue you think?" Elia asked, considering the trap. This one wasn't nearly as advanced as some of the others she saw near the entrance, but it was still impressive.

"Definitely a Rogue. Or someone with a high enough Rogue expertise to know what they're doing," Rhiannon replied. "And they did know what they were doing."

"And we're sure this Dungeon dates back to the Spell Plague?" Elia asked, tilting her head thoughtfully.

"Based on the nature of some of the bodies we found," Rhiannon said grimly, "I'd say this place dates back to before the Spell Plague. Possibly even to the Cataclysm."

Elia grimaced. "To the Cataclysm? Well, that narrows it down a little bit I guess."

"Not necessarily," Alfonse said, turning on his heel so he faced his friends while walking backwards. "We know the civilizations of Faerûn before the Cataclysm were advanced, but it was a different kind of advanced than what we see in these traps."

He gestured to the disabled trap on the wall with the hand that held his journal. "We're fairly certain that, even with how advanced they were, our ancestors didn't have guns like your lovely Widowmaker."

Elia preened and petted her precious rifle earning herself a fond chuckle from her friends. Damien was her true love, but her gun was her first love.

"If they didn't have guns, then that means they used more traditional weapons like normal people," Rhiannon declared. "There's very little as pleasurable as cleaving your enemy in two with an ax."

"But then the Artificer profession wouldn't have come along," Al whined, his green eyes twinkling playfully. "I'd be out of the job. The rise of technology and its integration with magic is what makes Artificers so useful these days."

"Unfortunately," Damien teased, with a good-natured groan.

Alfonse slapped a hand over his chest in mock offense. "You just be lucky I like you, bookworm."

"Keep talking, tinker. You might eventually get to the point."

Sulking, Al closed turned back to face where he was going and followed the cavern around a bend. "The point is," he shot a glare at the Tiefling, "the traps are good. Like real good. And more advanced than anything I've ever seen before. More advanced than the ruins we've found from before the Cataclysm."

That gave the entire party pause.

Elia noticed the dash of paint on the cavern wall and drew a deep breath. This was the deepest the clean-up crews had gotten until now. Damien was basically reduced to the simple spells of a child with a few others as a last resort backup and Al probably only had his healing spells prepared. That meant she would be the first line of magical defense. Thank the gods for Rhiannon and her battle prowess.

She pulled free of her husband and tugged her rifle from over her shoulder so it rested comfortably in her practiced grip. The butt of the weapon pressed against her shoulder as she raised the barrel, ready for anything. She wasn't a sniper for nothing.

"The type of metal in some of the tech we've found is impossible to identify and the sophistication of some of these devices is beyond me," Alfonse admitted, continuing to read his notes as they walked. "They're too advanced. There were similarities to what our ancestors used-"

"Such as?" Damien interrupted, intrigued.

Al scratched his head thoughtfully. "Crystals were used to power some of the traps and technology, like what our ancestors used and what we're beginning to get back to nowadays. But the level of sophistication in these is just…" He pursed his lips and sighed. "I can honestly say I've never seen technology or magic like this before. I'm not even sure if it's magic at all. It might just be a level of technology that's so advanced it looks like magic."

"And then there're the bodies," Rhiannon said grimly, glaring down at the body that was slowly moving into the Light spell's limits as the party approached it. "Their helmets aren't like anything I've ever seen before."

She freed her battleax and hefted it as she approached the body, kicking the oddly shaped helmet into view. It looked almost like a fancy falcon or some similar bird of prey.

"Are they all avian in nature?" Damien wondered, slipping past his wife and kneeling by the skeletal body.

"All the ones we've found, yes," Rhiannon confirmed. She harrumphed in disdain. "The soldiers who wore them must've enjoyed having a limited view of the battlefield. Not to mention the size and weight of those things." She spat on the ground. "Ugly, unwieldy, and ridiculous. Bird brains."

Damien hummed, as his gray fingers carefully picked through the bones. Then he paused and plucked something from the skeleton's stomach. It looked like it had been a serpent of some kind in life.

"Odd place to find a snake," he murmured, as the bones separated from each other under his examination.

"All of the bird guards had one of those," Rhiannon said.

"They don't look like a typical snake skeleton but," Alfonse shrugged, "Rhi's right. We have found bones similar to that in all of the bodies like that we found."

Damien crushed the bones in his palm to dust before standing. His dark emerald green cloak rustled around him as he took in the path ahead. "There're more bodies ahead," he said, squinting. "Most wearing helmets like that. Be ready."

Elia double checked her ammunition and raised her rifle once more. Next to her, Alfonse had tucked his journal away allowing Damien to dismiss the _Light_ cantrip attached to it, tugged his treasured gloves back on, and pulled out his revolver and his small eldritch cannon. Healer, historian, and archaeologist Alfonse might be, but he was also an artificer and fully capable of fighting it out with the best of them.

Behind her, her favorite Tiefling murmured a _Detect Magic_ and hefted his light crossbow. Elia waited until she felt Damien tap her indicating an 'all clear' before moving forward. Damien would stay near the back as their magical cover while she took point and Alfonse scanned the area for traps and other…. Inconveniences.

Ever battle ready, Rhiannon whispered a prayer to her goddess and bounced on the balls of her feet. Elia always felt more comfortable with her three best friends in the entire world by her side. They'd been together for years and had long ago learned to operate as a unit. Whatever was waiting for them in the cavern ahead would not kill them. She wouldn't let it.

The room was surprisingly large with remnants of the alien structure it once was still visible among the stalagmites and stalactites. The dim light suddenly became brilliant when a _Light_ spell attached itself to a central stalagmite. Before she could ask her husband why he'd cast that so soon, she glanced at the ground near her foot and realized what she'd missed in the darkness.

Bones. The floor was littered with them. Some were whole skeletons, and some were so thoroughly blasted apart she doubted even the best clerics of Faerûn would be able to piece them back together.

Worse. Some of those skeletons looked small, too small to be of adventuring age. Blessed Mishakal have mercy. Children. Whatever had laired here had had despicable taste. Damien must have noticed that first with his darkvision. Oh, this broke her heart. Steeling herself against the sight, she continued to scan the area for any remaining threats. There didn't seem to be anything, but best to be overly careful.

Other than the faint echoes of her party's footsteps, there was an eerie silence. Around her, columns made of that odd metal Alfonse still hadn't been able to identify soared up into the cavernous ceiling above. On close examination, Elia could barely make out the hexagram designs which had once been artfully carved into them. She carefully made her way around the nearest column when-

"Got something!"

Giving the area around her one last, quick scan, Elia hurried to Alfonse's side. Oh. Oh no. There were so many bones. So many too small bones. And they were all clustered behind a humanoid shaped statue of rock. That must be one of the unfortunate members of the party that managed to make it this far. She hoped the sacrifice of their party member got the rest of them out alive.

"Petrification?" she murmured, finally lowering her rifle. "You don't have _Greater Restoration_ yet, do you?"

Al shook his head sadly. "I don't, no. But I think Rhiannon does. Dami! It's clear, but we might have a petrification problem."

Damien appeared with Rhiannon by his side, her ax resting comfortably on her armored right shoulder. The warrior cleric took one look at the humanoid statue and grimaced. She handed Damien her ax ignoring the way he staggered briefly under its unexpected weight. Her attention was already locked on her bag of holding, her hands digging through the pocket dimension for her spell components.

"It might not do much," the cleric said. "I'll try, but considering we have no way of knowing how long they've been here…"

There was no way to know if the spell would work on a condition like petrification cast who knows how long ago. Understandable. All spells had limits. And this is assuming the statue was indeed a petrification victim and not just a bizarre statue.

"What's that?" the wizard asked, nodding to the severely damaged circular device on the ground near the statue.

"I'm not sure," Alfonse said, already making his way over to the device with Damien to study it. "Those aren't Arcane symbols though. Not any alphabet I recognize, actually. They don't look remotely familiar. You?"

Damien pursed his lips and shook his head. "But…" He murmured in Arcane and moved his nimble fingers in several quick somatic motions, then shook his head. "It's not magical."

While her husband and Al discussed the nature of the odd device, Elia circled the stone statue to get a better look at it. Who knew how long this person had been trapped here. It could be days (unlikely), or it could be years. She hoped it hadn't been too long. Although, the best way to get an idea of the person's home and, Mishakal forbid, era was to check the victim's clothing and weapon preference.

Based on the glaive the victim held in his stone hand, Elia guessed the victim had been a fighter or some other warrior class. But the style of clothing didn't make sense for a warrior. The person wore no visible armor and their stance wasn't a fighting style she recognized. Granted, seeing a freeze frame of one side of a fight didn't say much in the grand scheme of things.

When she reached the front of the petrified victim, she frowned. The victim's hood was up, but she could still get a good look at their face. _His_ face, she guessed after a brief glance at the victim's flat chest. She could be wrong though. She didn't develop until late either.

She hadn't noticed the odd sword at the victim's belt before. It had been hidden by the folds of the victim's cloak, turned to stone in mid blast. Curious blade. It was similar to a scimitar, but slightly different in style. She'd have Al do some research for her later.

The lower part of the victim's face was covered by a fabric mask, probably meant to muffle the sound of their breathing. Always a wise idea in a Dungeon full of creatures who hunted using sound. The upper half of their face, however, was visible and she almost wished it wasn't.

Those eyes… They were young and wide and frightened. Elia knew petrified victims could appear to be incredibly detailed statues, but she never really thought about _how_ detailed. Now that she could see the divots where the victim's pupils would be, she wished she could still claim ignorance. They may be stone and lifeless now, but the fear in those eyes was very, very real.

Whatever had happened to petrify this person had been sudden and terrifying. She silently sent up a prayer to Mishakal that Rhiannon had enough diamond dust on hand to cast the spell. Waiting was doable, but not preferable.

Then Al, ever the fiddler, pressed one of the symbols on the odd device and it immediately lit up. At the same time, there was a sharp sound from behind Elia which jolted her nerves. Lifting her Widowmaker, she whirled and aimed in the direction where the sharp sound had come from. But where she expected to see a trap or spell or even a monster, there was nothing but a large ring device embedded in a stone dais against the far cave wall.

The design was similar to the gateways installed on the Waterdeep Collegium campus. But those acted as locations for permanent _Teleportation Circles_ which were always inscribed on the ground beneath the arches. They were never engraved on the actual ring arches themselves.

The ring device was unlike anything Elia had ever seen before. There were 7 V-shaped metallic pieces that she could see spaced evenly around the edge of the ring. They were attached to the thick, rough outer ring leaving the inner ring smooth and covered in the exact same symbols as depicted on the device Alfonse had touched. The V at the top slightly offset to the right was glowing a dull orange in the bright _Light_ spell.

"This…."

"Is it a trap?" Rhiannon asked, keeping her voice low and even.

"No! No, no, I don't think it is," Alfonse said quickly. "I wonder if… Give me a second."

He looked between the ring and the device in front of him and hummed before pressing another symbol. Once again, the ring made a sharp metallic sound and the middle V on right came to light with an orange glow.

"It's like… dialing or something," Al muttered in awe.

"Do you know what it's dialing?" Damien asked pointedly.

"Uh…" The artificer flushed. "No, but nothing seems to be happening."

"Yet."

Rhiannon's lips twitched upwards in a fleeting smile as her friends continued to play with their new toy before she pulled out a small satchel from her Bag of Holding. "This is all I've got," she said regretfully, keeping one eye on the ring and its increasing number of glowing Vs. "Hopefully, it'll be enough."

"I've got a diamond if you need it," Alfonse offered, looking up from the glowing symbols. "I could use _Fabricate_ to turn it into more dust for you."

"And then you'd have to spend days trying to find another suitable diamond to replace it for your _Revivify_ spell," Elia said, shaking her head dismissively. "Keep it. It's easier to get dust than it is to get the whole gem." She turned to the cleric. "Give it a try please."

With a shrug, Rhiannon poured the diamond dust onto the top of the statue's head and gestured for the party to step back. With a soft muttered prayer, and a quick dance of fingers that seemed to weave strands of moonlight between them, the glistening diamond dust dissipated.

The stone gray faded away from the person's body and clothes revealing dark shades of blue, black, and gray. Bright blue eyes, wide with fear, glistened with tears as the pupils narrowed to pinpoints. The glaive lowered so the blade dragged on the ground while the other hand reached out as if to grasp something, or someone.

Then the eyes rolled back in the person's head and he fell limp. Rhiannon caught him before he could hit his head letting the glaive clatter uselessly to the ground. She pressed her hand against the young man's forehead, neck, and ears.

"He's colder than I would like but his pulse is strong. He's not an elf," she declared.

"Human, you think?" Elia offered.

Rhiannon shrugged. "Most likely." She hefted the person up and draped him over her armored shoulder with ease before standing. "We should take him back to the camp," she said.

"Quite right," Elia agreed. "Besides, we can give the official announcement that this Dungeon's cleared and let the scientists play in the dirt." She chuckled and glanced over at her ridiculous comrades when-

The metallic sounds changed. It sounded almost like a weapon spooling up. She and her comrades threw themselves to the ground just as a burst of blue-white energy punched through the darkness with a loud kawoosh! The energy was as chaotic as a splash of water from a spout, except when it stopped abruptly just short of Damien's now very pale gray face. Then the energy retreated just as suddenly as it had appeared leaving behind a pool of rippling blue-white energy that was deceptively like water and filled the room with a gentle glow similar to sunlight through water.

"By Selûne's blessed tears," Rhiannon whispered, staring up at the pool of watery energy that now filled the ring device.

Then the damaged dialing device sparked and the glowing symbols on the buttons went dark and the energy abruptly vanished with another loud sound. The only light left was the comparably harsher and dimmer glow of Damien's _Light_ spell.

"What. The actual fuck. Was that?" Elia demanded.

"I… I don't know," came Alfonse's whispered reply. "But I really want to find out. Finders Keepers."


	2. Demons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which SG-1 walks right into a mess, as usual. A bit more "demonic" than usual, though.

Major Samantha Carter shifted in her seat as the sixth chevron successfully locked. She held her breath and lifted her gaze to the Gate in anticipation. She watched as the Point of Origin settled beneath the final chevron…. And did not lock.

She sighed and slumped in her seat. “Maybe next time, Major,” Chief Master Sergeant Walter Harriman said, offering her a sympathetic smile.

“Yeah, maybe,” she agreed without feeling.

She still returned his smile, nonetheless. It wasn’t Walter’s fault the coordinates didn’t lock, again. They’d been trying to redial that gate address off and on for almost six months now. No luck yet. She was absolutely certain the address was correct since the computer saved it after the initial dial-in. The Gate had locked then but nothing came through: no forms of matter or energy. The wormhole just opened, then closed.

It set off alarm bells in throughout Stargate Command. Someone somewhere had the address for Earth and was successfully able to prevent the SGC from dialing them back. At first, it was more of a curiosity thing. A puzzle that Sam and her friend Dr. Daniel Jackson had considered worth pursuing in their free time.

But then Apophis came to Earth with two spaceships and tried to attack. She and her fellow SG-1 teammates managed to stop the attack and drive off Apophis then, but now the looming threat of the Goa’uld was a clear and present danger. Apophis’ attack convinced the government to keep the Gate open as the first line of defense and offense against the parasitic Goa’uld.

That made finding out the identity of the person or place responsible for dialing the Earth Gate and preventing redials a more serious matter. What if it was a Goa’uld?

Oh well. Not time to try again today. SG-1 was due to explore a new planet in an hour. Hopefully, it would be an easy mission. There were only a couple towns found on the initial recon scan by the unmanned aerial vehicle: one a fair distance from the Stargate in the valley and one further out on the mountainside. They appeared to be similar in style and architecture to Middle Ages Europe. There was even a decent photograph of what looked like a church in the valley village. It was an interesting find.

Stepping out into the hallway, she looked up to see Teal’c standing there waiting for her. She smiled and pulled her hat on.

“Had to try,” she admitted.

Teal’c merely smiled in understanding and strode into the Embarkation Room by her side. Col. Jack O’Neill and Dr. Jackson were just coming in from the other side, clearly in the middle of one of their infamous ‘debates.’ She shared a glance with Teal’c.

This might be a interesting trip, after all.

* * *

Eleven klicks from the Gate. Friggin’ eleven kilometers of walking. And to top it off, they now apparently had a Goa’uld posing as God. As in, the all-powerful God of Christianity and Jewish tradition. That just seemed way out of a Goa’uld’s typical playground. The typical Goa’uld persona was of a mythological deity who was limited by their domains. No Goa’uld, not even Ra, ever took on the persona of a single, all-powerful deity.

Case in point: Ra was the Egyptian god of the sun, power, and the now-former Supreme System Lord. Apophis was the Egyptian god of evil and chaos, depending on which mythological legend you read. Hathor was the Egyptian name for a goddess who was represented in several ancient mythologies that all boiled down to sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. Deities of specific domains, not deities of… everything.

Jack shook his head and grimaced. This was not sounding like a fun trip. The terrified looks and quiet screams of the villagers as they fled from SG-1’s mere appearance only helped to solidify Jack’s conclusion. But the cherry on the proverbial cake was finding the two young people chained to a ring of solid wooden stakes in the center of town.

The first person was a young woman who sat slumped on the ground. Her wrists were cuffed to a chain that ran through a metal hoop at the top of the wooden post she leaned against. Her eyes were closed and there were several small sores on her face, neck, and hands. She looked sick and weak and absolutely _not_ the type of person who should be chained up and left outside in the elements.

The other person was handcuffed to the other end of the chain the woman was attached to. He was definitely not human, if the black horn near his right temple was anything to go by. His hair was black and probably would’ve been nice if it hadn’t been pinned down by a metal contraption strapped to his head. His hands were clamped together in a pair of manacles that were more complex than those on the woman’s and seemed designed specifically to limit hand movement. The young man looked up at Jack with pupilless silver eyes in a gray skinned face. There was a fiery anger in those inhuman eyes.

Anger which, on closer inspection of that metal headgear, made complete sense to Jack. The device was essentially a very painful looking gag. The metal headpiece was cinched around the young man’s head so that the horizontal bar ran across the young man’s mouth. No, it went _in_ the young man’s mouth.

“A witch’s bridle.”

Jack turned to Daniel curiously. “A what?”

The archaeologist’s mouth opened and closed for a moment before he knelt down by the young man’s side to study the device. “It’s a witch’s bridle,” he said again. At Jack confused expression, Daniel explained, “We call them branks now. They’re considered torture devices and aren’t used anymore.”

Torture. Damn.

“She’s just sick, sir,” Sam spoke up form Jack’s right. “Chicken pox, I think.”

“Stop!”

Startled, Jack and Sam spun around, weapons raised, to see another young man wearing a simple, brown hood robe and holding a hand carved wooden cross. The man was shaking and holding the cross out in front of him as if to ward SG-1 off.

“Stop. Please,” the man pleaded. “Spare her. She’s too young. Please, she’s my sister.”

“Woah, woah, we’re not going to do anything,” Jack said, lowering his gun and raising his free hand in a calming manner.

“She just needs some medicine,” Sam said, nudging the chained girl awake. “We have the cure where we’re from. It’s not a problem.”

Hope sparked in the stranger’s eyes, but he still skittered back and kept the cross raised when Jack stepped forward.

“You can drive the demons from her?” the man asked, licking his lips nervously. “You can- You can-”

“You think she’s possessed?” Daniel asked, his voice calm and gentle. “I promise you, she’s not possessed. There’s no demon in her. It’s just an illness.”

There were times when Jack was grateful for his friend’s gift of de-escalating situations like this. Even if it could be annoying at other times. Still, he glanced back at the sick young woman and the young man in the torture device and sighed. He couldn’t just walk away from this. He conscience wouldn’t let him.

Slowly, hesitantly, still very obviously frightened, the stranger lowered his cross and let Daniel touch him.

“Look, let’s get her somewhere inside so we can start taking care of her, okay?” Jack suggested.

After a second or two of hesitation, the stranger nodded. As soon as he got the affirmative nod, Teal’c raised his staff weapon and fired a single blast at the chains, breaking them. Instantly, the chained man scrambled to his feet and made to bolt, only to find his escape path blocked by the much larger form of Teal’c.

“You freed the witch,” the frightened stranger whimpered, stumbling back from the dark-haired man. “You freed the devilspawn!”

The gagged man glared furiously at the frightened human which earned him another whimper.

“He’s not a demon,” Daniel said quickly. “He just looks different. Just like we’re not demons.”

Brown eyes filled with terror flickered between Daniel, SG-1, the sick girl, and the horned man. “He came through the Ring of Darkness,” the cross bearer whispered, clutching his icon to his chest. “Just like you did. Just like the Demon does at the Time of Sacrifice.”

“Time of Sacrifice?” Sam parroted in confusion.

“We’re not demons,” Daniel insisted, placing a gentle hand on the shaking cross bearer’s shoulder. “None of us,” he gestured to all of them, careful to include the horned individual, “are demons. We’re travelers from far away. We did come through the ring, yes,” he said, hurriedly raising his hand to quell the villager’s fright, “but not from a world of darkness. We call the ring a Stargate.”

“S-Stargate?”

“Yes,” Daniel said, smiling. “I’m called Daniel. This is Jack,” he nodded to the colonel, “and Sam,” he motioned to the blonde officer currently helping the sick woman stand, “and that’s Teal’c,” he finished, pointing to the Jaffa standing by the horned man.

The villager swallowed thickly. “I am called Simon,” he admitted finally.

“Good,” Daniel smiled. “It’s nice to meet you Simon. Now come on, let’s get your sister somewhere warm.”

“O-of course,” Simon said, nodding. However, when he noticed Teal’c guiding the horned man along, he flinched. “But not the devilspawn. My home will not be cursed by more spawns of Satan.”

Oh boy. A fanatic. Oh, this was going to be so much fun.

“Teal’c,” Jack said, turning back to his friend, “can you get that thing off?”

Silver eyes widened in surprise and the man lifted his chained hands to touch the metal binding his head hopefully.

“I can certainly try,” the Jaffa said.

“Don’t _free_ him!” Simon cried suddenly. “He will put a spell on us.”

“He will _not_ put a spell on us,” Jack said, trying to keep his voice down. “He’s not a demon and magic’s not real. Teal’c?”

The Jaffa handed his staff weapon to Jack, then carefully undid the clasps at the back of the person’s head and slowly removed the device. The man gagged as the metal slid from his mouth and coughed once it was removed, spitting bright red blood onto the cobblestone road.

“Hold out your hands,” Teal’c said.

“No,” the man said, his voice gruff and hoarse from the damage the device did to it. “I’ve got this part. _Knock._ ”

Instantly, sound reverberated through the small village, bouncing off the stone walls and stone roads and scaring the _shit_ out of Jack. Hell, even Teal’c seemed surprised. Both of his eyebrows were raised. Simon was cowering in Daniel’s arms, shivering and muttering to himself.

At the same time, the lock securing the manacles on the man’s hands came undone and slid away. He pulled his hands close to his chest, massaging the feeling back into his fingers. He looked up at Teal’c and nodded.

“Thank you,” he said, rubbing the trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. “Apparently, I… owe you.”

“It was no trouble,” Teal’c said, retrieving his staff weapon.

“Nice trick you did there,” Jack said, his ears still ringing. “Think maybe next time going a bit higher on the subtle meter? Just sayin’.”

For his part, the young man flushed a darker gray in embarrassment. “It was better than having your friend blast my hands,” he countered in a sulky tone. “No offense,” he added to Teal’c. “I’m certain your skills with that weapon are far superior to mine. But I need my hands, you have no healer, and I doubt your ability to pick locks with any finesse.”

Teal’c tilted his head in acknowledgement. “No offense taken.”

“We should leave,” the man said, still rubbing his hands. “The Canon who overpowered me will be back soon and I don’t want to get blasted again.”

He coughed again and pressed a hand to his damaged mouth in obvious pain and Jack and his ridiculously bleeding heart crumbled under the image.

“Alright, come on,” he said, reaching out and grabbing the young man’s blood speckled white sleeve. “Simon, get us out of here.”

“That devilspawn is _not-”_

“Will you shut up your racist nonsense and get us out of here?” the silver-eyed person said, slightly annoyed. “Unless you _want_ the Canon to return and make sure your sister dies, then by all means keep blabbering.”

The man actually began examining his fingernails while speaking, as if he really didn’t give a damn about this situation at all. You know, if this wasn’t as serious a situation as Jack suspected it was, that would’ve deserved at least a chuckle. Maybe later.

“Simon? Simon,” Daniel said, ever the master at de-escalation. “Let’s just get somewhere safe and then you can explain what’s going on, alright? Does that sound good?”

Simon glanced at Daniel hesitantly, before his shoulders slumped and he hurriedly guided them off the street and into a nondescript house just off the plaza.

The horned man huffed. “Not as far nor as hidden as I would prefer,” he muttered, slipping over to the window.

Jack joined him and, sure enough, they had a direct line of sight to the wooden stakes. Considering how they’d just found him, yeah, Jack could understand the guy’s point of view. Still, “Got a name?” he asked.

The man sighed. “Damien Zivilyn.”

“Damien, I’m Jack,” he replied in kind, holding out his hand.

After a moment, Damien took it. “So,” he said before Jack could speak up, “you came through the Ring of Many Worlds?”

Ring of Many Worlds, huh? Okay. So the guy knew about the Stargate going to many different planets. Useful.

“Yeah. Just visiting,” Jack said.

Damien lifted an eyebrow, stared at him, then snorted. “So were we before we met this town of Humanist racists,” he spat. “They were fine with me until the Canon saw through my _Disguise Self_ illusion. Then suddenly I was,” he placed an offended hand over his chest and made a mock expression of horror, “spawn of the devil himself? Lord have mercy.” Crossing his arms and rolling his eyes. “Close minded idiots.”

The appearance of nonchalance faded briefly when Damien reached up and rubbed his mouth again tenderly.

“Mind if I take a look?” Jack offered.

Damien sighed and turned, leaning into the light and Jack checked his mouth for any serious damage. There didn’t appear to be much aside from a cut on Damien’s gray tongue and new, sore-looking ulcers forming along the insides of his cheeks where the metal must’ve rubbed.

“You’re not bleedin’ too bad,” Jack said, leaning back and patting Damien on the shoulder. “It’ll heal. You said you had someone else with you when you came here?”

“Yes.” He rolled his shoulders and leaned against the stone wall to watch the others moving about the room. “We split up to investigate both villages. My comrade and I went to this one while my wife and our friend went up to the mountain village.”

Jack blinked. “You’re wife?”

Damien nodded.

“Okay. So why’d you come here?” At Damien’s look, Jack clarified, “To this world, I mean?”

“Oh geez!”

Daniel’s outburst drew their attention. Sam was still kneeling by the girl’s bed, confusion clear on her face. Teal’c was gazing at the tableau with quiet curiosity, listening to everything that was said and pondering it. Daniel, however, appeared obviously distressed.

“Daniel?” Jack called.

“Ah… Trepanning,” Daniel sputtered, obviously shocked.

“Tr-what?”

“Trepanning,” Daniel repeated. “It was a procedure from the Middle Ages. They’d drill a hole into the person’s head. By drilling the hole, the evil spirits are released thus preventing eternal damnation.”

“That’s monstrous!” Damien gasped. “It’s just a simple illness. Time and medicine will cure it easily.”

“Well, we don’t call it the ‘Dark Ages’ because it was dark outside,” Daniel said grimly.

“Sir, it’s just chicken pox,” Sam called, her bright blue eyes wide. “Her fever’s high, but it should break. It’s not serious.”

Before he could formulate a reply, a horn sounded in the distance. With it came a cry from someone outside, “The Demon comes!”

Crap. Jack hated time crunches.

* * *

  
Ah. So it finally shows itself. Damien narrowed his eyes and stepped closer to the window, taking care to remain in the shadows of the dimly lit home. Speaking of, he invoked _Thaumaturgy_ by whispering to the flames, ordering them to dim even further until they were almost to a smolder. There were some advantages to have racial spells that didn’t require material components.

Damn he missed his spellbook. The poor thing was probably scared half to death wherever it was. Hopefully, it hadn’t been burned yet. He’d chosen a very simple looking journal for his awakened spellbook’s consciousness to inhabit. No need to draw any more attention to the arcane focus than necessary. Since Damien had had several books on his person at the time of his capture, he could only hope that idiot Canon hadn’t figured out which book was which. Or hadn’t just burned all of them.

He caught himself biting his thumbnail again and grimaced. Elia was always getting onto him for that habit. Nervous ticks were the worst.

“The Demon comes?” he heard the human Jack whisper from further inside. A moment later, the entire team from the Ring of Many Worlds gathered by Damien’s side at the windows to see this ‘demon.’

Oh. Oh that thing was… grotesque. No wonder the people here called it a demon.

“Damn,” Jack muttered under his breath, turning to the Jaffa. “Unas?”

Unas?

“You are correct, O’Neill,” Teal’c replied just as quietly. “The first host of the Goa’uld.”

Goa’uld. Those evil creatures that always had Kai jumpy as hell. They really needed to figure out a classification for those things. Still, Damien focused on the beast outside, ‘host’ was an odd choice of words.

“No, no, no. We killed him. He’s dead,” Jack insisted fiercely.

“We only killed one Unas,” Teal’c whispered back calmly.

“I thought there only _was_ one,” Jack hissed. “Unas. Uno. One?”

“They are, in fact, a species,” Teal’c replied.

Well then.

“The Time of Sacrifice is at hand,” the monstrous Unas proclaimed. “My lord Satan calls for five wretched souls to be claimed as his.”

Satan?

“Satan?” Jack repeated in disbelief.

“Gathering host bodies,” Sam said, her blue eyes dark with anger and disgust.

Host bodies?

“At sunrise I shall return to claim the five,” the Unas continued, silencing the whispers. “If you have not chosen, I shall take whom I please in far greater numbers.”

“I think we were wrong about this Goa’uld,” Daniel whispered, looking haggard as he shared a glance with Sam. “He isn’t playing ‘god.’ He’s playing the ‘devil.’”

Which one though? There are many. Unless... _The_ Devil. That implies a particular demon. Asmodeus perhaps? Lucifer?

But that didn’t make sense. As far as he and his team had been able to learn, the other planes did not interfere with other worlds anywhere near as often as they did with their home world Toril’s Material Plane. What made this world unique?

Unless, this wasn’t an inter-planar meddling at all. Host, they’d said. Hosts for the Goa’uld.

Damien knew the Goa’uld. His little party had run into them on multiple occasions during their explorations. Most of the time by accident. Although, having a Rogue as member of their party had made it a bit fun causing mayhem when they did chance upon that disgusting race.

Even if they made Kai twitchy. As long as Kai twitched towards his weapons instead of running away, Damien didn’t mind. Although, he rubbed his bare wrist in mounting annoyance, he would kill for a piece of copper wire and his spellbook right no-

_“Can you hear me?”_

Startled, Damien stiffened, eyes wide. “Kai?” he gasped, casting his eyes around the village clearing for any sign of his friend, even though he knew it was folly. “Where the hell are you? Are you alright?”

_“I could be better. I evaded the worst of it. It didn’t affect me as much as it did you. …I’m sorry I fled.”_

“Don’t be,” the wizard hissed, leaning back against the wooden window shutter. “You’re good, but even you can’t take a whole village on top of that Canon’s magic. It’s radiant and lightning, by the way.”

_“Ah. That makes sense. How did you get free? I just snuck back into the village. Do you want me to come get you or your things first?”_

Silver eyes drifted to the others in the room. Only one pair of dark eyes were fixed on him. The Jaffa. He was quiet and astute, much like Kai. The other visitors from the Ring were attempting to explain the Unas creature to the imbecilic idiot who owned this home. The Jaffa’s pondering presence was calming.

Devilspawn. However accurate that was, it was _not_ his fault and it was _nothing_ to be ashamed of. Honestly, the ignorance of these people.

_“Dami?”_

“Don’t call me that.” His response was almost reflexive now. Ever since Alfonse told Kai about that nickname, Damien knew he was doomed.

“Get my things first,” he said finally. “If I have my spellbook back, I’ll be more useful. And don’t tell Elia.”

_“…I don’t have Sending.”_

“Good.”

_“You sure you’re alright? That thing… It’s a Goa’uld. I’ve never seen a Goa’uld in a creature like that before, but it’s definitely a Goa’uld. There’s one very close to you as well.”_

“I’m aware,” he said. Meeting the Jaffa’s eyes, he replied, “I’m with a group of people who also came through the Ring. You sense the Jaffa.”

A single dark eyebrow lifted in a perfect arch, silent and listening.

“They’re friends. They freed me.”

He tried not to worry when he didn’t get an immediate response. Message only worked if the caster had a copper wire. Their whole party had the cantrip, but Damien’s wire had been taken from him, along with almost everything else. And without his spellbook which also served as his arcane focus, he couldn’t cast any spell that wasn’t a racial spell or only had verbal and/or somatic components.

So he waited.

After what felt like forever, but was probably only ten seconds, he felt Kai’s voice brush his mind again.

_“I’ll find your spellbook. If you promise to stay safe.”_

“I’ll try,” Damien said, rolling his shoulders. “However…” he pursed his lips and shifted his gaze from Teal’c to the sick girl on the bed. After everything these people had done to him and his friend, Damien really shouldn’t be doing this. He really shouldn’t.

Selûne had mercy.

“We could use your healing here,” Damien said. “The girl who was chained up with me, she’s ill. They’re going to kill her because these imbeciles think she’s possessed by evil spirits.”

_“…How does that even make sense?”_

“It’s worse. They’re going to drill a hole in her head to ‘let the evil spirits out.’”

_“But that’ll kill her!”_

“My point.”

_“Do you want me to come now?”_

“Cease your devilry!” Simon screamed from his place by his sister’s bed. His wide eyes locked on Damien. “It bad enough your presence violates the sanctity of my home. But to cast such evil spells-”

“I’m not casting anything,” Damien said with a heavy sigh. “I’m talking to a friend. They’re the caster, not me.”

“That does _not_ excuse your evil words and-”

“Silver Lady, grant me patience with this stupid human.”

“Even _now_ you pray to-”

“I pray to the deity of my choice,” Damien said, augmenting his voice through a dash of _Thaumaturgy._ Anything to make this man shut up. “Just as you pray to the deity of your choice. That creature out there is no demon. It is a Goa’uld. Which means,” he grinned, flashing a fang, “it can be killed.”

“You’re going to _kill_ one of your own?” Simon gasped.

Damien sighed and rolled his eyes, rubbing his face. He was talking to a wall. He was actually talking to a human-shaped wall. Why was he even trying.

“Look, look, will you just calm down and _listen_ to us for a second?” Jack said, holding up a hand to stem whatever venomous word vomit was inevitably waiting at the tip of Simon’s tongue. “Damien’s right.”

Small mercies.

“We told you, that thing out there is an Unas,” Jack said, enunciating each word. “We’ve killed one before. We can do it again.”

“Brother,” the sick woman pleaded from where she lay weak and feverish on the bed in the corner. “Please. Listen to them.”

“Mary, I-”

“Please.” She reached out and clutched his hand weakly with her fingers. “Maybe they speak true. This could be God’s answer to our prayers. This could be our chance to be free. Please, I don’t…” Tears welled in her eyes and her lips trembled in her sickly pale face. “I don’t want to die, Simon. Please.”

For the first time since Damien had the misfortune of meeting Simon, he saw genuine compassion and a weary fear in the fear-enslaved man’s eyes. The human curled his fingers around his sister’s hand, knelt by her side, and pressed a kiss to their joined hands.

“If what you say… is true,” Simon said eventually, looking up from his sister to the other travelers from the Ring, “and you have killed an… Unas once before…” He licked his lips, trying to push the words past his fear. “Then perhaps you _are_ the answer to our prayers.”

Well, well. So the man could be persuaded to see sense. Wonder how long that will last. Though, granted, it appeared that confession was harder to admit than Damien first thought it would be. Perhaps he’d miscalculated and these people were much deeper in the abyss of fear than he initially realized.

Although, Damien noted wryly, he didn’t miss how Simon implied the _other_ travelers were the answer to his prayers. Rude.

“Welp,” Jack said, his voice cutting through Damien’s thoughts, “what’d that lizard say? Back by sunrise?”

“You are considering an attack, O’Neill?” Teal’c asked, his hand adjusting its grip on his staff weapon. “It will not be easy to defeat.”

“Eh, couple blasts with the staff,” Jack said, waving to Teal’c weapon, “and we own him.”

“We hope,” Sam countered. “It took Thor’s Hammer to kill the last one.”

“Thor?” Damien gasped. “Of the Asgard?”

The other travelers all turned to him in surprise. “You know him?” Daniel asked.

“Know _of_ him, yes,” Damien said, nodding slowly. “There are several mentions of him among my people’s ruins. There was an alliance of some kind. Thor was spoken of highly, from what I understand.” Well, from Alfonse’s research anyway. This wasn’t Damien’s area of expertise.

“Huh. Good to know.” Jack flashed him a smile, his eyes sparkling with interest.

“Still,” Daniel said, forcing himself to turn away from Damien to focus on his friend, “It’ll take more than a few staff blasts to get rid of it.”

“A _lot_ of staff blasts then,” Jack groaned. “Look, Daniel, how long have these people been stuck like this?”

“Uh, well, um,” Daniel humbled, pushing his glasses up his nose awkwardly.

“A thousand years?” Jack pressed. “Easy? Longer?”

Daniel sighed. “Yeah. Yes, at least,” he admitted.

One _thousand_ years of fear-enslavement?! 

“Yeah, that’s long enough,” Jack declared firmly. “These people are being terrorized and we have the power to stop it. We can’t just ignore that.”

“Sokar will seek revenge,” Teal’c said simply.

“Alright, so we bury the Gate after we’ve gone,” Jack countered.

“They could come in ships,” Daniel muttered.

Ships? How? This place wasn’t on the same Plane or world. How could the Goa’uld come here in ships? Was there some secret way of traveling between worlds that did _not_ require the Ring?

“I can’t be sure,” Sam spoke up, “but the coordinates of this planet are years away from any Goa’uld homeworld. Even with their fastest ships.”

Planet? Wait.

“Simon?” Jack called to the human villager. “Do you want us to do this?”

Wait. Planet? As in… the eight planets that rotated around the sun? Including Toril’s sister planet Abeir? This world… This _planet_ … was somewhere else in the same Realmspace as Toril? The Ring could… _do_ that?

This whole time, Damien had been operating under the idea that the Ring merely transported people from one alternative version of Toril to another. Not… not _another_ planet _separate_ from Toril in every respect.

“Simon?” Jack pressed.

The man bit his lip. “Are we not in God’s hands?”

Selûne have mercy.


	3. Kai

Kai wanted out of this place. It was bringing back too many dark memories he never wanted to experience again. The overcast sky, the rain, the dreary atmosphere, the priests who could not be trusted, the fear that permeated the land and the people, and the whispers of a ‘Demon’ who would come and snatch you away if you didn’t watch your back. Then a party of adventurers from ‘outside’ come in and are swept up in an inevitable, unwinnable clash against the terrors of the dreary world. Just like so many adventurers in the past Kai witnessed, his friend had fallen pray to this dreadful world’s traps.

Kai wanted _out_. He’d already nearly driven himself into a spiraling panic attack as the similarities continued to surface and grate on his nerves and sanity. It had taken him months to reach a stability his friends had considered acceptable. He didn’t want to regress and undo all their hard work. Besides, now he had something to focus on. Damien was gone and so was the wizard’s familiar. At least neither were dead.

Yet.

The only redeeming factor about this godsforesaken place was the distinct lack of ghosts and spirits. There were some, of course. There always would be in places where people gathered. But there weren’t as many as Kai expected. There were a few he could see who died of an illness, some from starvation, one or two had holes bored into their heads, and some looked like they were tortured to death. But Kai had only been able to count a grand total of six ghosts so far. Far fewer than he expected. Still, the methods of their untimely demise were all similar in one respect: none were from old age.

Kai would not let his friend suffer a similar fate to those ghosts. He hadn’t dared risk talking to one of the spirits to learn what he could. If the attitude of the native living Humans here was anything to go by, he doubted their dead counterparts would react kindly to his attempts to interact.

So he kept silent and slipped from one roof to the next. His feet and hands still tingled slightly where the priest’s blazing attack had raged through his body. The radiance hadn’t been nearly as bad, thankfully. But it wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t managed to dodge the worst of it. Just one bolt managed to knock Damien unconscious and left Kai stunned and disoriented. The priest’s ring was something Kai would need to be wary of from now on.

At the time, Kai had been too disoriented to fight. He was fast and agile, but he couldn’t very well fight when he could barely stand upright let alone see straight. It had taken most of his concentration to use one charge of his eternal wand on himself when the villagers ganged up on him after the attack. He stayed long enough to make sure Damien was alive, then slipped away, blending into the mist from the recent rainstorm.

Changing back to humanoid form after existing as a cloud of fog for half an hour had been a relief. It had also resulted in the unpleasant realization that yes, lightning really did hurt, and a harsh reminder that no, he was not as hardy as he used to be. Thankfully, not many people thought to look up making high places like the church belfry the perfect place to hide out for a few hours. The path up to the belfry had been fairly easy too thanks to the eternal wand’s _Gaseous Form_ spell. Flying was so much easier and quieter than climbing.

Those village idiots had finally stopped trying to chase him sometime a couple hours ago. He’d used the opportunity to sit quietly up in the belfry massaging feeling back into his tingling limbs and focusing on getting his head to stop spinning. He hated being stunned. It was such an unpleasant feeling.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t risk using his healing ability on himself. He was largely fine, just tingling, singed, and stunned. Dami would undoubtedly be worse off. Kai would need all of his healing for his friend once he got the wizard out of this mess. So, after a brief nap to try and give his body a chance to recover naturally, he spent most of the last couple hours trying to find Dami’s personal affects and ultimately find and rescue his friend.

He’d been able to track down and steal some of Dami’s components, including the _Message_ cantrip’s copper wire. But he hadn’t been able to find the spellbook. Though he was fairly certain it hadn’t been destroyed yet. So there was that.

The only place Kai hadn’t been able to give a thorough once-over was the private chambers behind the pulpit in the church’s sanctuary. Based on what he’d heard going on in there through the door… It was probably for the best. So much for the chastity of the priesthood. Whoever that woman was, she was apparently enjoying herself.

He gagged. Bad memories. Shake it off. Focus on something else.

They weren’t due to meet back with Elia and Alfonse until later today. Since _Message_ didn’t have the required range and Kai didn’t have _Sending_ , he couldn’t call them for help. They really did need to find a way around that. Buy some _Sending_ stones from a bazaar back home or something. Kai could really use the backup right about now.

Oh well. He sent up a prayer to his Patron and placed a single scale and a couple pressed wildflowers he’d picked when they first arrived on this dreadful world in a small niche in the belfry tower support columns. The Archfey had an odd sense of humor and would undoubtedly find the tiny offering enshrined in the church of a foreign deity endlessly amusing. Lady Eva was charmingly quirky that way.

A few hours after dawn, he heard the tell-tale cries of the villagers, startling him awake from the light doze he’d managed to finally slip into. Frantically, he’d scrambled out of the belfry and down onto one of the lower roofs. The belfry had a good view of the village square, but not of the village entrance. It was also too far for him to attack quickly if the need called for it unless he used his ranged magic. That would draw too much attention to himself and give away his hiding place. Even if it was effective.

As it turned out, his aid hadn’t been required after all. The four oddly dressed strangers seemed friendly, even the one Jaffa. Kai fought the urge to flinch. A lifetime of living in fear of an eternal, seemingly unkillable monster and his powerful, merciless servants would probably never really go away. Shaking away the lingering bad memories, Kai pressed himself flat against the roof so only his eyes peered over the ridge and waited, watching the strangers free both Damien and the woman.

_Damien was there?!_

Shocked, Kai ducked back down and recalculated. Damien was- _had been there?!_ Since when? Kai had checked right before his nap. Only the woman had been there. He must have either slept longer than he meant to or somehow missed his _friend_ being escorted out from wherever he’d been held and chained to the sacrificial block.

Damn. He was slipping. This place was clearly affecting him mentally more than he thought it was. With a shudder, he took one, then two deep breaths and counted to ten. When he finally found the courage to peek back over the roof ridge, the square was mostly empty and there was movement from inside the house with open shutters across the way.

Or there was, until an ominous cry of “The Demon comes!” frightened everyone else who’d been brave enough to stay outside skittering back into their homes and hidey-holes. The shutters of the house across the way slammed shut, then one or two opened ever so slightly. Kai recognized Dami’s face for the brief moment it was visible before it moved further back into the shadow of the home. 

Heavy footsteps crunched the ground and Kai couldn’t stop his shaking. It was pure instinct that forced him to duck and curl up in a fetal position on the roof. It took all of his concentration to not weep and whisper frantic prayers to his Patron. She would hear him, but he didn’t _want_ her to. He’d tried so hard to be better. He didn’t want her to see him crumble like this.

Quaking fingers fumbled with the component bag strapped to his thigh until his fingers felt the familiar solid wood of his two wands. But one fizzled under his fingertips, attuned to his touch, his energy, and his Fey-given magic. Pulling it out of his bag, he clutched the smooth, petrified wood to his chest. The moonstones, spiraling silver wire, and carved leaves and flowers bit comfortingly into his palm as he curled protectively around it. The swirls of color in the fluorite crystal nestled at the wand’s tip pulse quietly with energy, syncing with his own, and anchoring him to reality.

This wasn’t Strahd. This wasn’t Barovia. He wasn’t back in his home village, imprisoned in the church’s cellar in the dark and dank and solitude waiting for death. This wasn’t his first life, or his second, or even his third. But this would be his last if he stayed here and did nothing but panic.

Strahd was gone, dead and defeated according to his new friends and Lady Eva. Barovia was long gone, absorbed back into the vastness that was Faerûn and the Feywild. This, this place right here, was neither Barovia _nor_ Faerûn. It was another world entirely.

Was he going to allow his own fears and bad memories to prevent him from keeping his new friends safe? Was he going to allow his own failings to prevent him from helping these people escape the same fate his own fellow Barovians had suffered for so long?

Swallowing hard, he forced himself to uncurl and peer over the ridge. The ‘Demon’ wasn’t Strahd. Their appearances weren’t even remotely similar. Looking at the thing now in all its grotesque glory actually helped calm Kai’s nerves. This wasn't the Demon, or even _a_ Demon. It was just a monster.

A monster with a Goa’uld in it if that echoing voice was anything to go by. That brought a pike of fear, but also a burning hatred that overpowered the fear. The shaking stopped, replaced by a warm sensation that made him twitchy for an entirely new reason. His arcane focus was still in his hand. All he had to do was fire an _Eldritch Blast._ It would be so quick, so effective, and ever so satisfying.

He reached into his coat pocket and felt his fingers brush one of his three remaining Tokens of the Departed. If he crushed one, he could use his Ghost Walk ability one more time today. It would give him an edge. His Pact Weapon would help him with the rest.

But that would still leave him at the mercy of the villagers and that crazy, bastard priest. Besides, Damien was right there as well and hadn’t done anything either. Neither had those four strangers. Not even the Jaffa.

Ah, now there was another puzzle. A Jaffa _willingly_ traveling with Humans. A Jaffa who was _not_ aiding a Goa’uld.

The hatred didn’t go away, but it did begin to ebb. It was no longer acting as a block to his panic with reactions and battle, it was driving him to learn, know, understand, and comprehend. Alfonse always talked about how it was best to _know_ your enemy before facing them. If the enemy could be dealt with using just a single bullet to the head or a well-placed, explosive _Glyph of Warding,_ then use those instead. Fight intelligently, not brashly.

Of course, that had been followed by the explosion of a very nasty, very cleverly built homemade canon, but that was beside the point. It was impressive though.

Right. So breathe, count to ten, contact Damien, and then go from there. And for the love all that was fey and holy, get that squishy wizard out of here. Damien was effective in battle, but particularly vulnerable without his spellbook.

His first priority was contacting his friend. Second, get the wizard safely out of town. Third, find and return the wizard’s spellbook. Then they could deal with this mess and get _out_ of this dreadful place.

So he waited until the monster masquerading as a ‘demon’ was out of sight before risking a _Message_ spell. Hearing Damien’s reply had been a welcome relief and soothed his ruffled feathers better than any mental exercise. However, Kai could hear the odd way the Tiefling pronounced his words and suspected that gods-damned gagging device had done more than just silence the wizard. Yet Damien still asked Kai to heal the woman first. That was so typical of the prissy boy.

Kai wasn’t even sure if his abilities could heal an illness like that. Wounds and injuries were one thing, illnesses were another. Regardless, healing Dami came first. The natives could wait.

He moved while sending and listening to the responses to his _Messages_ until he was certain he was on the correct roof. There was a window at the back of the house facing an abandoned alleyway. Kai could access it from the roof overhang. The window was shuttered too, so that would give him a chance to peek in without being seen.

Slipping silently onto the wooden windowsill, Kai listened to the hum of voices inside. When there was finally a lull in the conversation, he rapped his knuckles against the wooden shutters. Just in case, he lifted his copper wire bracelet to his mouth, and whispered, “I’m here. Can I come in?”

 _“Yes,”_ came Dami’s whispered reply, sounding like it was right by Kai’s ear and not actually in his head. “ _But be wary of the native. He’s… ah…”_

“Understood.”

He took one last look at the empty alleyway and rooftops around him, then shifted so he faced the window, tucked is arcane focus wand back into his component bag, and pushed the shutters open. It was dimly lit inside, perhaps just enough to bother a Human. A brief survey of the room revealed seven people: the four strangers including the Jaffa, two native Humans, and Damien. They were all staring directly at him. Eva preserve him. He hated being the center of attention.

He slung one foot inside, dropping quietly to the floor, and waved awkwardly.

“Spirit!”

Startled, Kai froze. The native Human had grabbed a wooden cross and was holding it out in front of him as if it was a shield of some kind. Kai hesitated, glanced at Damien who honestly looked about ready to pull his hair out, and decided to stop this from escalating any further than it already had. Damien caught his eye and immediately understood, subtly nudging the strangers from the Ring of Many Worlds further away until they were safely out of range.

Then, reaching up to pull down the scarf covering the lower half of his face and lower his hood, Kai fixed his piercing blue gaze on the native Human and smiled. The native’s frenzied eyes suddenly widened for an entirely different reason as he suddenly found himself drowning in Kai’s Fey Presence.

* * *

“Back up,” Damien whispered, grabbing Jack’s arm and tugging him insistently. “Back up!”

Okay, hint taken. Jack obediently took several steps back, pleased when his team followed suit. Together, they moved until they were almost against the wall facing the village square. He glanced at Damien who was keeping a very sharp but friendly eye on their new guest.

The newcomer was about Sam’s height, lean, with bright blue eyes and jet black hair framing his pale face. He wore a black and blue dyed leather coat with tails that hung down to his booted ankles. Two belts circled his thin waist with a knife sheath fastened to the left side of the upper belt. A small bag was strapped to the young man’s right thigh and was probably attached to the lower waist belt somewhere under the long coat as well.

The young man waited patiently while Simon shouted and waved a cross at him until Jack and his team joined Damien by the far wall. Then the hooded stranger did the oddest thing. He uncovered the lower half of his face, pushed back his hood, and smiled at Simon.

It was _not_ a friendly smile, nor was it a _harmless_ smile. Jack had seen that smile of many enemies, most notably Hathor. He double-checked to be sure his weapon was still ready, and that he still had the free will to grab his weapon and press his finger just enough to the trigger.

“Is that any way to greet a friend?” the newcomer said, and his voice sounded threatening in the most… fond sort of way? It was hard to explain.

Simon stiffened, his words stuttering to a halt as the young man stepped closer until he was very much in Simon’s person space. In the candle lit room, Simon almost looked… enchanted by the young man’s appearance. He even allowed his cherished cross to be lowered when the stranger gently placed his hand on the wood and pushed it down.

“You should rest,” the stranger said, his voice low and breathy like a whisper that carried a heavy weight in the air. He turned his gaze to Mary lying on the bed, her brown eyes staring at Kai as if transfixed. “She needs care. Be with her.”

There was no argument, no rebuttal, no frightened declarations, no muttered prayers, no resistance. Simon merely nodded and moved to sit on the bed.

“Pay no heed to what we say,” the stranger whispered into Simon’s ear. “We will not harm you,” his smiled sharpened and his blue eyes gleamed, “unless you prove to be… inhospitable.”

That was definitely a threat. But neither Simon nor Mary barely seemed to notice. Both of them were gazing up at the stranger as if he was the second coming of Christ; silent for the first time since they’d met.

Simon licked his lips and nodded. “Y-yes. I won’t be,” he muttered, his gaze locked on the stranger’s face, flickering between his eyes and lips.

“Good,” the guest breathed. He rested a hand on the poor man’s shoulder and squeezed. “See that you don’t.”

Then the stranger turned away, keeping his movements slow and measured as he strode across the room towards Jack and his people. Almost immediately, his threateningly friendly expression vanished, replaced by a calm, quiet, urgency.

“Dami, where’re you hurt?” he demanded, ignoring the rest of them.

“Friend of yours?” Jack asked.

“Ah, yes. Jack, Kai. Kai, Jack,” Damien said, holding out his hand taking a loop of simple copper wire from this Kai person and slipping it on his wrist. “My mouth,” he said, answering Kai’s question. “That thing cut my tongue.”

“Let me see.” Kai waited for Damien to lean down slightly and allow him to look inside his mouth. After a moment, Kai leaned back and pressed a two fingers over Damien’s lips. A soft, golden glow emanated from Kai’s fingertips and Damien flinched.

“Sorry,” Kai said, actually sounding like he meant it. “That should do it though.”

Damien opened and closed his mouth, working it before nodding and tentatively rubbing his jaw. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” Kai turned back to Simon and Mary. “That won’t last for much longer,” he said, finally looking at the rest of them. “If we plan on getting out of here before that bastard priest gets back, then we need to leave now.”

“I can’t leave my things,” Damien insisted.

“I can get them after you’re out of this dreadful place,” Kai said in a tone that was calm, but belied the emotion burning in his eyes. “I can pass as Human. You can’t and we both know that priest can see through your _Disguise Self_. You’re worth more alive than captured again. Or dead,” he added in a quiet whisper that sounded genuinely afraid.

“He’s right,” Jack said, startling both Kai and Damien. “You two get out of here. We’ll handle the Unas then get the heck out of Dodge.” He shook his head and looked around the hovel of a home. “I’m not going to miss this place.”

“Whatever we do, we need to do it quickly,” Kai said, again glancing back at Simon and Mary.

Damien hesitated only briefly, before giving in. “Fine. I’ll go. But my books, my-”

“I’ll get them,” Kai said, digging into his thigh bag. He pulled out a stick of simple, unadorned, wood about as long as his forearm with what look like a smokey quartz crystal attached at the end. “Use this and get out of here.”

“It only has one charge left!” Damien said, shaking his head. “I can’t take that from you.”

“I’m stealthier than you. I can get out unnoticed with or without this if I want to. Use it and get out,” Kai snapped back, waving it in Damien’s face, going so far as to whack the man’s nose with it.

“No!” Damien argued. “Elia will _kill_ me! I’ll never hear the end of it if she found out I used one of your wands.”

Kai rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’ll do it _for_ you.”

Damien barely had time to process that before Kai stepped back and a bolt of blue-gray energy shot from the crystal, striking Damien who vanished in a cloud of fog that lingered and swirled in the air.

….what?

“Hey!” Instantly, Jack and his team raised their weapons and aimed them squarely at Kai’s chest.

“Now _get out!”_ Kai ordered fiercely to the… fog, ignoring Jack and his team.

Impossibly, the fog rippled and obediently slipped out the window and into the square like a sulking child, clinging to the ground as it moved out of sight.

“What the hell was that?” Jack demanded, his finger guarding the trigger but not yet firing. He’d seen weirder things. Maybe.

“I’m saving his life,” Kai said, turning to Jack and his team, heedless of the weapons they had trained on him. “If that priest gets here, he _will_ kill him this time. I can take more hits than he can and I have a better chance at escape.”

He leaned slightly to look out the front window before sighing. “Damien vouched for you,” he said after a moment. “All of you,” he added, looking significantly at Teal’c. “I’m trusting you to leave us be. Get out of this town and don’t trust the people here. They will betray you the first chance they get.”

Slowly, warily, Jack lowered his gun. “Sounds like personal experience talking,” he said.

Kai gave him a look. “How do you think Dami got captured to begin with?” he said simply. “We trusted the people and they betrayed us.” He pressed his lips together briefly in indecision, biting his lower lip before speaking again. “Don’t trust the priest,” he said, staring Jack dead in the eye. “He does not negotiate. And be wary of his ring.”

Turning on his heel, Kai moved to return to the window he entered from, only to find Simon standing between him and the window. Simon pointed an condemning finger at him.

“You banished him!” Simon accused.

Kai froze, muttering a curse in a language Jack didn’t recognize.

“You banished the demon!” Simon cried, rushing to stare at the now empty place where Damien had… misted away. “You… What did you do to me? I… You made me…”

Kai slowly raised his hands in a placating manner and tried to make himself as non-threatening as possible.

“You made me….” Simon’s face contorted in disgust. “You made me _want_ you!” he accused. “You made me…” The disgust cleared from his face and bulging eyes flashed back to where Damien once stood then back to Kai. “You didn’t banish the demon at all, did you?” he demanded, his free hand reaching for his ever-present cross. “You were _helping_ him.”

Kai sighed, but Jack recognized the way Kai subtly adjusted his footing to a more stable, ready stance.

“Simon, we’ve been over this,” Daniel said, his calm voice cutting through the tension and immediately drawing Simon’s attention. “Damien wasn’t a demon. None of us,” he gestured to everyone in the room, “are demons. We look different, but appearances don’t determine whether a person is evil or a demon. Even the Unas you saw outside wasn’t a demon. It’s a creature. It can be killed.”

Simon gulped, shifting his feet distrustfully.

“Let me leave,” Kai said, keeping his voice calm and even. “I am not a demon. Nor am I your enemy. But if you want me out of your house,” he said, taking slow, deliberate steps around Simon and Mary’s bed towards the window, “then let me leave. I’ll be out of your house, out of your hair, and you won’t have to see or deal with me again.”

A single bell tolled, ringing deep and final through the air, startling everyone.

“The Canon returns,” Simon whispered, a hopeful smile returning to his face.

Jack saw it before it happened. Kai bolted for the window at the same time Simon dropped his cross and grabbed the trepanning device.

“Look out!” Jack shouted, too late.

Simon plunged the sharpened tip into Kai’s back ripping a pained cry from him. Kai staggered under the weight of Simon pressing down on the trepanning device, pushing the makeshift weapon deeper. Then something shimmered in Kai’s right hand a split second before he gasped a word and vanished in a puff of quickly dissipating mist.

Simon fell to his knees as his support literally vanished out from underneath him. His knees crashed inelegantly to the floor where he sat looking around in confusion. He turned, wide eyed -you know, Jack was really beginning to think Simon was just _always_ wide-eyed- and clutching a now bloodied trepanning device. Simon looked up at Jack then back at the device in his hand, as if shocked by his own actions.

Then his brow furrowed and he plucked something small and light from the blood. His expression shifted to something closer to horror and despair as he examined it.

“Brother?” Mary called weakly, deliriously trying to pull herself out of bed to her frightened brother.

Simon breathed heavily as he lifted his gaze to his sister, tears brimming his eyes. “What have I done?” he breathed.

Daniel, ever the calming presence, even in the face of attempted murder, pushed past Sam and Teal’c to get a better look at the thing in Simon’s hand. When he looked back at Jack he was frowning in confusion.

“It’s a feather,” he said. “It’s just a feather.”

Simon clutched the bloodied feather in his hands as if in prayer. “I think I... I think I killed an angel,” he gasped, shaking and weeping on the floor.

Okay…. This was starting to be a lot weirder than Jack anticipated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** Just in case anyone's wondering, I've created character sheets for the Faerûn characters on DnDBeyond. I have been rolling for almost everything they do (attacks, skill checks, damages, etc) which gives this a level of surprise even for me. I ended up rolling a Nat 1 for Kai's Wisdom save a bit earlier (I'm sure you can tell at what point) and I had to sit there pondering my place in life before I kept writing. As you do when that happens. 
> 
> As for why Kai has an extra level above the others, he's had... a few more lives of experience on some things. Kudos to anyone who manages to figure out which Curse of Strahd canon NPC Kai once was.
> 
> These are their races, classes, and levels.
> 
>  **1)** Damien "Dami" Zivilyn - Tiefling - level 15 - Order of Scribes wizard  
>  **2)** Elia Zivilyn - Human - Level 15 - Dragonblood Sorcerer  
>  **3)** Kai Anwnn - Aasimar - Level 16 - Phantom Rogue (13) / Archfey Warlock (3)  
>  **4)** Alfonse Cartwright - Human - Level 15 - Artillerist Artificer  
>  **5)** Rhiannon Swiftmoon - Half-Elf (Eladrin/Kagonesti) - Level 15 - Path of the Beserker Barbarian (5) / Life Cleric (10)


End file.
